Request For Comments - RFC4322

Network Working Group M. Richardson
Request for Comments: 4322 SSW
Category: Informational D.H. Redelmeier
Mimosa
December 2005
Opportunistic Encryption using the Internet Key Exchange (IKE)
Status of This Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).
Abstract
This document describes opportunistic encryption (OE) as designed and
implemented by the Linux FreeS/WAN project. OE uses the Internet Key
Exchange (IKE) and IPsec protocols. The objective is to allow
encryption for secure communication without any pre-arrangement
specific to the pair of systems involved. DNS is used to distribute
the public keys of each system involved. This is resistant to
passive attacks. The use of DNS Security (DNSSEC) secures this
system against active attackers as well.
As a result, the administrative overhead is reduced from the square
of the number of systems to a linear dependence, and it becomes
possible to make secure communication the default even when the
partner is not known in advance.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................31.1. Motivation .................................................31.2. Encryption Regimes .........................................41.3. Peer Authentication in Opportunistic Encryption ............41.4. Use of RFC 2119 Terms ......................................52. Overview ........................................................62.1. Reference Diagram ..........................................62.2. Terminology ................................................62.3. Model of Operation .........................................8
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1. Introduction
1.1. Motivation
The objective of opportunistic encryption is to allow encryption
without any pre-arrangement specific to the pair of systems involved.
Each system administrator adds public key information to DNS records
to support opportunistic encryption and then enables this feature in
the nodes' IPsec stack. Once this is done, any two such nodes can
communicate securely.
This document describes opportunistic encryption as designed and
implemented by the Linux FreeS/WAN project in revisions up and
including 2.00. Note that 2.01 and beyond implements [RFC3445] in a
backward compatible way. A future document [IPSECKEY] will describe
a variation that complies with RFC 3445. For project information,
see http://www.freeswan.org.
The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and Internet Engineering
Steering Group (IESG) have taken a strong stand that the Internet
should use powerful encryption to provide security and privacy
[RFC1984]. The Linux FreeS/WAN project attempts to provide a
practical means to implement this policy.
The project uses the IPsec, ISAKMP/IKE, DNS, and DNSSEC protocols
because they are standardized, widely available, and can often be
deployed very easily without changing hardware or software, or
retraining users.
The extensions to support opportunistic encryption are simple. No
changes to any on-the-wire formats are needed. The only changes are
to the policy decision making system. This means that opportunistic
encryption can be implemented with very minimal changes to an
existing IPsec implementation.
Opportunistic encryption creates a "fax effect". The proliferation
of the fax machine was possible because it did not require that
everyone buy one overnight. Instead, as each person installed one,
the value of having one increased because there were more people that
could receive faxes. Once opportunistic encryption is installed, it
automatically recognizes other boxes using opportunistic encryption,
without any further configuration by the network administrator. So,
as opportunistic encryption software is installed on more boxes, its
value as a tool increases.
This document describes the infrastructure to permit deployment of
Opportunistic Encryption.
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The term S/WAN is a trademark of RSA Data Systems, and is used with
permission by this project.
1.2. Encryption Regimes
To aid in understanding the relationship between security processing
and IPsec, we divide policies controlling network traffic into four
categories. The traffic is categorized by destination address using
longest prefix match. Therefore, each category is enumerated by a
set of network prefixes. The categories are mutually exclusive; a
particular prefix should only occur in one category.
* Deny: network prefixes to which traffic is always forbidden.
* Permit: network prefixes to which traffic in the clear is
permitted.
* Opportunistic tunnel: network prefixes to which traffic is
encrypted if possible, when it otherwise might be sent in the
clear.
* Configured tunnel: network prefixes to which traffic must be
encrypted, and traffic in the clear is never permitted. A
traditionally defined Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a form of
configured tunnel.
Traditional firewall devices handle the first two categories. No
authentication is required. The permit policy is currently the
default on the Internet.
This document describes the third category: opportunistic tunnel,
which is proposed as the new default for the Internet.
Category four's policy is a very strict "encrypt it or drop it"
policy, which requires authentication of the endpoints. As the
number of endpoints is typically bounded and is typically under a
single authority, arranging for distribution of authentication
material, while difficult, does not require any new technology. The
mechanism described here, however, does provides an additional way to
distribute the authentication materials; it is a public key method
that does not require deployment of an X.509 based infrastructure.
1.3. Peer Authentication in Opportunistic Encryption
Opportunistic encryption creates tunnels between nodes that are
essentially strangers. This is done without any prior bilateral
arrangement. Therefore, there is the difficult question of how one
knows to whom one is talking.
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One possible answer is that since no useful authentication can be
done, none should be tried. This mode of operation is named
"anonymous encryption". An active man-in-the-middle attack can be
used to thwart the privacy of this type of communication. Without
peer authentication, there is no way to prevent this kind of attack.
Although it is a useful mode, anonymous encryption is not the goal of
this project. Simpler methods are available that can achieve
anonymous encryption only, but authentication of the peer is a
desirable goal. Authentication of the peer is achieved through key
distribution in DNS, leveraging upon the authentication of the DNS in
DNSSEC.
Peers are, therefore, authenticated with DNSSEC when available.
Local policy determines how much trust to extend when DNSSEC is not
available.
An essential premise of building private connections with strangers
is that datagrams received through opportunistic tunnels are no more
special than datagrams that arrive in the clear. Unlike in a VPN,
these datagrams should not be given any special exceptions when it
comes to auditing, further authentication, or firewalling.
When initiating outbound opportunistic encryption, local
configuration determines what happens if tunnel setup fails. The
packet may go out in the clear, or it may be dropped.
1.4. Use of RFC 2119 Terms
The keywords MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD,
SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL, when they appear in this
document, are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119]
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2. Overview
2.1. Reference Diagram
The following network diagram is used in the rest of this document as
the canonical diagram:
[Q] [R]
. . AS2
[A]----+----[SG-A].......+....+.......[SG-B]-------[B]
| ......
AS1 | ..PI..
| ......
[D]----+----[SG-D].......+....+.......[C] AS3
Figure 1: Reference Network Diagram
In this diagram, there are four end-nodes: A, B, C, and D. There are
three security gateways, SG-A, SG-B, SG-D. A, D, SG-A, and SG-D are
part of the same administrative authority, AS1. SG-A and SG-D are on
two different exit paths from organization 1. SG-B and B are part of
an independent organization, AS2. Nodes Q and R are nodes on the
Internet. PI is the Public Internet ("The Wild").
2.2. Terminology
Note: The network numbers used in this document are for illustrative
purposes only. This document could not use the reserved example
network numbers of [RFC3330] because multiple address ranges were
needed.
The following terminology is used in this document:
Security gateway (or simply gateway): a system that performs IPsec
tunnel mode encapsulation/decapsulation. [SG-x] in the diagram.
Alice: node [A] in the diagram. When an IP address is needed, this
is 192.1.0.65.
Bob: node [B] in the diagram. When an IP address is needed, this is
192.2.0.66.
Carol: node [C] in the diagram. When an IP address is needed, this
is 192.1.1.67.
Dave: node [D] in the diagram. When an IP address is needed, this is
192.3.0.68.
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SG-A: Alice's security gateway. Internally it is 192.1.0.1,
externally it is 192.1.1.4.
SG-B: Bob's security gateway. Internally it is 192.2.0.1, externally
it is 192.1.1.5.
SG-D: Dave's security gateway. Also Alice's backup security gateway.
Internally it is 192.3.0.1, externally it is 192.1.1.6.
Configured tunnel: a tunnel that is directly and deliberately hand-
configured on participating gateways. Configured tunnels are
typically given a higher level of trust than opportunistic
tunnels.
Road warrior tunnel: a configured tunnel connecting one node with a
fixed IP address and one node with a variable IP address. A road
warrior (RW) connection must be initiated by the variable node,
since the fixed node cannot know the current address for the road
warrior.
Anonymous encryption: the process of encrypting a session without any
knowledge of who the other parties are. No authentication of
identities is done.
Opportunistic encryption: the process of encrypting a session with
authenticated knowledge of who the other party is without
prearrangement.
Lifetime: the period in seconds (bytes or datagrams) for which a
security association will remain alive before rekeying is needed.
Lifespan: the effective time for which a security association remains
useful. A security association with a lifespan shorter than its
lifetime would be removed when no longer needed. A security
association with a lifespan longer than its lifetime would need to
be re-keyed one or more times.
Phase 1 SA: an ISAKMP/IKE security association sometimes referred to
as a keying channel.
Phase 2 SA: an IPsec security association.
Tunnel: another term for a set of phase 2 SA (one in each direction).
NAT: Network Address Translation (see [RFC2663]).
NAPT: Network Address and Port Translation (see [RFC2663]).
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AS: an autonomous system.
FQDN: Fully-Qualified Domain Name
Default-free zone: a set of routers that maintain a complete set of
routes to all currently reachable destinations. Having such a
list, these routers never make use of a default route. A datagram
with a destination address not matching any route will be dropped
by such a router.
2.3. Model of Operation
The opportunistic encryption security gateway (OE gateway) is a
regular gateway node, as described in [RFC0791] section 2.4 and
[RFC1812], with the additional capabilities described here and in
[RFC2401]. The algorithm described here provides a way to determine,
for each datagram, whether or not to encrypt and tunnel the datagram.
Two important things that must be determined are whether or not to
encrypt and tunnel and, if so, the destination address or name of the
tunnel endpoint that should be used.
2.3.1. Tunnel Authorization
The OE gateway determines whether or not to create a tunnel based on
the destination address of each packet. Upon receiving a packet with
a destination address not recently seen, the OE gateway performs a
lookup in DNS for an authorization resource record (see Section 5.2).
The record is located using the IP address to perform a search in the
in-addr.arpa (IPv4) or ip6.arpa (IPv6) maps. If an authorization
record is found, the OE gateway interprets this as a request for a
tunnel to be formed.
2.3.2. Tunnel Endpoint Discovery
The authorization resource record also provides the address or name
of the tunnel endpoint that should be used.
The record may also provide the public RSA key of the tunnel end
point itself. This is provided for efficiency only. If the public
RSA key is not present, the OE gateway performs a second lookup to
find a KEY resource record for the endpoint address or name.
Origin and integrity protection of the resource records is provided
by DNSSEC (see [RFC4033]). Section 3.2.4.1 documents an optional
restriction on the tunnel endpoint if DNSSEC signatures are not
available for the relevant records.
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2.3.3. Caching of Authorization Results
The OE gateway maintains a cache, in the forwarding plane, of
source/destination pairs for which opportunistic encryption has been
attempted. This cache maintains a record of whether or not OE was
successful so that subsequent datagrams can be forwarded properly
without additional delay.
Successful negotiation of OE instantiates a new security association.
Failure to negotiate OE results in creation of a forwarding policy
entry either to deny or permit transmission in the clear future
datagrams. This negative cache is necessary to avoid the possibly
lengthy process of repeatedly looking up the same information.
The cache is timed out periodically, as described in Section 3.4.
This removes entries that are no longer being used and permits the
discovery of changes in authorization policy.
3. Protocol Specification
The OE gateway is modeled to have a forwarding plane and a control
plane. A control channel, such as PF_KEY [RFC2367], connects the two
planes.
The forwarding plane performs per-datagram operations. The control
plane contains a keying daemon, such as ISAKMP/IKE, and performs all
authorization, peer authentication, and key derivation functions.
3.1. Forwarding Plane State Machine
Let the OE gateway maintain a collection of objects -- a superset of
the security policy database (SPD) specified in [RFC2401]. For each
combination of source and destination address, an SPD object exists
in one of five following states. Prior to forwarding each datagram,
the responder uses the source and destination addresses to pick an
entry from the SPD. The SPD then determines if and how the packet is
forwarded.
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transmission. If there is a datagram already stored in this way,
then that already-stored datagram is discarded.
The rationale behind saving the "first" and "last" datagrams are as
follows: The "first" datagram is probably a TCPSYN packet. Once
there is keying established, the gateway will release this datagram,
avoiding the need for the endpoint to retransmit the datagram. In
the case where the connection was not a TCP connection, but was
instead a streaming protocol or a DNS request, the "last" datagram
that was retained is likely the most recent data. The difference
between "first" and "last" may also help the endpoints determine
which data was dropped while negotiation took place.
3.1.3. Pass-Through Policy
The gateway forwards the datagram using the normal forwarding table.
The gateway enters this state only by command from the keying daemon,
and upon entering this state, also forwards the "first" and "last"
datagrams.
3.1.4. Deny Policy
The gateway discards the datagram. The gateway enters this state
only by command from the keying daemon, and upon entering this state,
discards the "first" and "last" datagrams. An implementation MAY
provide the administrator with a control to determine if further
datagrams cause ICMP messages to be generated (i.e., ICMP Destination
Unreachable, Communication Administratively Prohibited. type=3,
code=13).
3.1.5. Encrypt Policy
The gateway encrypts the datagram using the indicated security
association database (SAD) entry. The gateway enters this state only
by command from the keying daemon, and upon entering this state,
releases and forwards the "first" and "last" datagrams using the new
encrypt policy.
If the associated SAD entry expires because of byte, packet or time
limits, then the entry returns to the Hold policy, and an expire
message is sent to the keying daemon.
All states may be created directly by the keying daemon while acting
as a gateway.
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3.2. Keying Daemon -- Initiator
Let the keying daemon maintain a collection of objects. Let them be
called "connections" or "conn"s. There are two categories of
connection objects: classes and instances. A class represents an
abstract policy (i.e., what could be). An instance represents an
actual connection (i.e., what is running at the time).
Let there be two further subtypes of connections: keying channels
(Phase 1 SAs) and data channels (Phase 2 SAs). Each data channel
object may have a corresponding SPD and SAD entry maintained by the
datagram state machine.
For the purposes of opportunistic encryption, there MUST, at least,
be connection classes known as "deny", "always-clear-text", "OE-
permissive", and "OE-paranoid". The latter two connection classes
define a set of destination prefixes for which opportunistic
encryption will be attempted. The administrator MAY set policy
options in a number of additional places. An implementation MAY
create additional connection classes to further refine these
policies.
The simplest system may need only the "OE-permissive" connection, and
would list its own (single) IP address as the source address of this
policy and the wild-card address 0.0.0.0/0 as the destination IPv4
address. That is, the simplest policy is to try opportunistic
encryption with all destinations.
This simplest policy SHOULD be offered as a preconfigured default.
The distinction between permissive and paranoid Opportunistic
Encryption ("OE-paranoid" below) use will become clear in the state
transition differences.
In brief, an OE-permissive policy means to permit traffic to flow in
the clear when there is a failure to find and/or use the encryption
keys. OE-permissive permits the network to function, even if in an
insecure manner.
On failure, a paranoid OE ("OE-paranoid") will install a drop policy.
OE-paranoid permits traffic to flow only when appropriate security is
available.
In this description of the keying machine's state transitions, the
states associated with the keying system itself are omitted because
they are best documented in the keying system ([RFC2407], [RFC2408],
and [RFC2409] for ISAKMP/IKE), and the details are keying system
specific. Opportunistic encryption is not dependent upon any
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3.2.2. Clear-Text Connection
The nonexistent connection makes a transition to this state when an
always-clear-text class is instantiated, or when an OE-permissive
connection fails. During the transition, the initiator creates a
pass-through policy object in the forwarding plane for the
appropriate flow.
Timing out is the only way to leave this state (see Section 3.2.7).
3.2.3. Deny Connection
The empty connection makes a transition to this state when a deny
class is instantiated, or when an OE-paranoid connection fails.
During the transition, the initiator creates a deny policy object in
the forwarding plane for the appropriate flow.
Timing out is the only way to leave this state (see Section 3.2.7).
3.2.4. Potential OE Connection
The empty connection makes a transition to this state when one of
either OE class is instantiated. During the transition to this
state, the initiator creates a hold policy object in the forwarding
plane for the appropriate flow.
In addition, when making a transition into this state, DNS lookup is
done in the reverse-map for a TXT delegation resource record (see
Section 5.2). The lookup key is the destination address of the flow.
There are three ways to exit this state:
1.DNS lookup finds a TXT delegation resource record.
2.DNS lookup does not find a TXT delegation resource record.
3.DNS lookup times out.
Based upon the results of the DNS lookup, the potential OE connection
makes a transition to the pending OE connection state. The
conditions for a successful DNS look are:
1.DNS finds an appropriate resource record.
2. It is properly formatted according to Section 5.2.
3. If DNSSEC is enabled, then the signature has been vouched for.
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Note that if the initiator does not find the public key present in
the TXT delegation record, then the public key must be looked up as a
sub-state. Only successful completion of all the DNS lookups is
considered a success.
If DNS lookup does not find a resource record or if DNS times out,
then the initiator considers the receiver not OE capable. If this is
an OE-paranoid instance, then the potential OE connection makes a
transition to the deny connection state. If this is an OE-permissive
instance, then the potential OE connection makes a transition to the
clear-text connection state.
If the initiator finds a resource record, but it is not properly
formatted, or if DNSSEC is enabled and reports a failure to
authenticate, then the potential OE connection makes a transition to
the deny connection state. This action SHOULD be logged. If the
administrator wishes to override this transition between states, then
an always-clear class can be installed for this flow. An
implementation MAY make this situation a new class.
3.2.4.1. Restriction on Unauthenticated TXT Delegation Records
An implementation SHOULD also provide an additional administrative
control on delegation records and DNSSEC. This control would apply
to delegation records (the TXT records in the reverse-map) that are
not protected by DNSSEC. Records of this type are only permitted to
delegate to their own address as a gateway. When this option is
enabled, an active attack on DNS will be unable to redirect packets
to other than the original destination.
3.2.5. Pending OE Connection
The potential OE connection makes a transition to this state when the
initiator determines that all the information required from the DNS
lookup is present. Upon entering this state, the initiator attempts
to initiate keying to the gateway provided.
Exit from this state occurs with either a successfully created IPsec
SA or a failure of some kind. Successful SA creation results in a
transition to the key connection state.
Three failures have caused significant problems. They are clearly
not the only possible failures from keying.
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Note that if there are multiple gateways available in the TXT
delegation records, then a failure can only be declared after all of
them have been tried. Further, creation of a phase 1 SA does not
constitute success. A set of phase 2 SAs (a tunnel) is considered
success.
The first failure occurs when an ICMP port unreachable is
consistently received without any other communication, or when there
is silence from the remote end. This usually means that either the
gateway is not alive, or the keying daemon is not functional. For an
OE-permissive connection, the initiator makes a transition to the
clear-text connection, but with a low lifespan. For an OE-
pessimistic connection, the initiator makes a transition to the deny
connection again with a low lifespan. The lifespan in both cases is
kept low because the remote gateway may be in the process of
rebooting or be otherwise temporarily unavailable.
The length of time to wait for the remote keying daemon to wake up is
a matter of some debate. If there is a routing failure, 5 minutes is
usually long enough for the network to re-converge. Many systems can
reboot in that amount of time as well. However, 5 minutes is far too
long for most users to wait to hear that they can not connect using
OE. Implementations SHOULD make this a tunable parameter.
The second failure occurs after a phase 1 SA has been created, but
there is either no response to the phase 2 proposal, or the initiator
receives a negative notify (the notify must be authenticated). The
remote gateway is not prepared to do OE at this time. As before, the
initiator makes a transition to the clear-text or the deny connection
based upon connection class, but this time with a normal lifespan.
The third failure occurs when there is signature failure while
authenticating the remote gateway. This can occur when there has
been a key roll-over, but DNS has not caught up. In this case again,
the initiator makes a transition to the clear-text or the deny
connection based upon the connection class. However, the lifespan
depends upon the remaining time to live in the DNS. (Note that
DNSSEC signed resource records have a different expiry time from
non-signed records.)
3.2.6. Keyed Connection
The pending OE connection makes a transition to this state when
session keying material (the phase 2 SAs) is derived. The initiator
creates an encrypt policy in the forwarding plane for this flow.
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There are three ways to exit this state. The first is by receipt of
an authenticated delete message (via the keying channel) from the
peer. This is normal teardown and results in a transition to the
expired connection state.
The second exit is by expiry of the forwarding plane keying material.
This starts a re-key operation with a transition back to pending OE
connection. In general, the soft expiry occurs with sufficient time
left to continue using the keys. A re-key can fail, which may result
in the connection failing to clear-text or deny as appropriate. In
the event of a failure, the forwarding plane policy does not change
until the phase 2 SA (IPsec SA) reaches its hard expiry.
The third exit is in response to a negotiation from a remote gateway.
If the forwarding plane signals the control plane that it has
received an unknown SPI from the remote gateway, or an ICMP is
received from the remote gateway indicating an unknown SPI, the
initiator should consider that the remote gateway has rebooted or
restarted. Since these indications are easily forged, the
implementation must exercise care. The initiator should make a
cautious (rate-limited) attempt to re-key the connection.
3.2.7. Expiring Connection
The initiator will periodically place each of the deny, clear-text,
and keyed connections into this sub-state. See Section 3.4 for more
details of how often this occurs. The initiator queries the
forwarding plane for last use time of the appropriate policy. If the
last use time is relatively recent, then the connection returns to
the previous deny, clear-text or keyed connection state. If not,
then the connection enters the expired connection state.
The DNS query and answer that lead to the expiring connection state
are also examined. The DNS query may become stale. (A negative,
i.e., no such record, answer is valid for the period of time given by
the MINIMUM field in an attached SOA record. See [RFC1034] section
4.3.4.) If the DNS query is stale, then a new query is made. If the
results change, then the connection makes a transition to a new state
as described in potential OE connection state.
Note that when considering how stale a connection is, both outgoing
SPD and incoming SAD must be queried as some flows may be
unidirectional for some time.
Also note that the policy at the forwarding plane is not updated
unless there is a conclusion that there should be a change.
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3.2.8. Expired Connection
Entry to this state occurs when no datagrams have been forwarded
recently via the appropriate SPD and SAD objects. The objects in the
forwarding plane are removed (logging any final byte and packet
counts, if appropriate) and the connection instance in the keying
plane is deleted.
The initiator sends an ISAKMP/IKE delete to clean up the phase 2 SAs
as described in Section 3.4.
Whether or not to delete the phase 1 SAs at this time is left as a
local implementation issue. Implementations that do delete the phase
1 SAs MUST send authenticated delete messages to indicate that they
are doing so. There is an advantage to keeping the phase 1 SAs until
they expire: they may prove useful again in the near future.
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3.3.1. Unauthenticated OE Peer
Upon entering this state, the responder starts a DNS lookup for a KEY
record for the initiator. The responder looks in the reverse-map for
a KEY record for the initiator if the initiator has offered an
ID_IPV4_ADDR, and in the forward map if the initiator has offered an
ID_FQDN type. (See [RFC2407] section 4.6.2.1.)
The responder exits this state upon successful receipt of a KEY from
DNS, and use of the key to verify the signature of the initiator.
Successful authentication of the peer results in a transition to the
authenticated OE Peer state.
Note that the unauthenticated OE peer state generally occurs in the
middle of the key negotiation protocol. It is really a form of
pseudo-state.
3.3.2. Authenticated OE Peer
The peer will eventually propose one or more phase 2 SAs. The
responder uses the source and destination address in the proposal to
finish instantiating the connection state using the connection class
table. The responder MUST search for an identical connection object
at this point.
If an identical connection is found, then the responder deletes the
old instance, and the new object makes a transition to the pending OE
connection state. This means that new ISAKMP connections with a
given peer will always use the latest instance, which is the correct
one if the peer has rebooted in the interim.
If an identical connection is not found, then the responder makes the
transition according to the rules given for the initiator: it
installs appropriate policy: clear, drop, or OE.
If OE, and the phase 2 ID (source IP) is different than the phase 1
ID, then additional authorization is required. A TXT record
associated with the proposed phase 2 source IP is requested. This is
used to confirm authorization for the phase 1 identity to encrypt on
behalf of the phase 2. Successful retrieval results in a transition
to "Authorized OE Peer".
Note that if the initiator is in OE-paranoid mode and the responder
is in either always-clear-text or deny, then no communication is
possible according to policy. An implementation is permitted to
create new types of policies such as "accept OE but do not initiate
it". This is a local matter.
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3.3.3. Authorized OE Peer
This state is entered from the Authenticated OE Peer state, upon
successful retrieval of the TXT record. The contents of the record
are confirmed -- any failures lead to errors, as indicated in Section
3.2.4.
3.4. Renewal and Teardown
3.4.1. Aging
A potentially unlimited number of tunnels may exist. In practice,
only a few tunnels are used during a period of time. Unused tunnels
MUST, therefore, be torn down. Detecting when tunnels are no longer
in use is the subject of this section.
There are two methods for removing tunnels: explicit deletion or
expiry.
Explicit deletion requires an IKE delete message. The deletes MUST
be authenticated, so both ends of the tunnel must maintain the keying
channel (phase 1 ISAKMP SA). An implementation that refuses to
either maintain or recreate the keying channel SA will be unable to
use this method.
The tunnel expiry method simply allows the IKE daemon to expire
normally without attempting to re-key it.
Regardless of which method is used to remove tunnels, the
implementation MUST use a method to determine if the tunnel is still
in use. The specifics are a local matter, but the FreeS/WAN project
uses the following criteria. These criteria are currently
implemented in the key management daemon, but could also be
implemented at the SPD layer using an idle timer.
Set a short initial (soft) lifespan of 1 minute since many net flows
last only a few seconds.
At the end of the lifespan, check to see if the tunnel was used by
traffic in either direction during the last 30 seconds. If so,
assign a longer tentative lifespan of 20 minutes, after which, look
again. If the tunnel is not in use, then close the tunnel.
The expiring state in the key management system (see Section 3.2.7)
implements these timeouts. The timer above may be in the forwarding
plane, but then it must be resettable.
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The tentative lifespan is independent of re-keying; it is just the
time when the tunnel's future is next considered. (The term lifespan
is used here rather than lifetime for this reason.) Unlike re-
keying, this tunnel use check is not costly and should happen
reasonably frequently.
A multi-step back-off algorithm is not considered worth the effort
here.
If the security gateway and the client host are the same, and not a
Bump-in-the-Stack or Bump-in-the-Wire implementation, tunnel teardown
decisions MAY pay attention to TCP connection status as reported by
the local TCP layer. A still-open TCP connection is almost a
guarantee that more traffic is expected. Closing of the only TCP
connection through a tunnel is a strong hint that no more traffic is
expected.
3.4.2. Teardown and Cleanup
Teardown should always be coordinated between the two ends of the
tunnel by interpreting and sending delete notifications. There is a
detailed sub-state in the expired connection state of the key manager
that relates to retransmits of the delete notifications, but this is
considered to be a keying system detail.
On receiving a delete for the outbound SAs of a tunnel (or some
subset of them), tear down the inbound ones also and notify the
remote end with a delete. If the local system receives a delete for
a tunnel that is no longer in existence, then two delete messages
have crossed paths. Ignore the delete. The operation has already
been completed. Do not generate any messages in this situation.
Tunnels are to be considered as bidirectional entities, even though
the low-level protocols don't treat them this way.
When the deletion is initiated locally, rather than as a response to
a received delete, send a delete for (all) the inbound SAs of a
tunnel. If the local system does not receive a responding delete for
the outbound SAs, try re-sending the original delete. Three tries
spaced 10 seconds apart seems a reasonable level of effort. A
failure of the other end to respond after 3 attempts indicates that
the possibility of further communication is unlikely. Remove the
outgoing SAs. (The remote system may be a mobile node that is no
longer present or powered on.)
After re-keying, transmission should switch to using the new outgoing
SAs (ISAKMP or IPsec) immediately, and the old leftover outgoing SAs
should be cleared out promptly (delete should be sent for the
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outgoing SAs) rather than waiting for them to expire. This reduces
clutter and minimizes confusion for the operator doing diagnostics.
4. Impacts on IKE
4.1. ISAKMP/IKE Protocol
The IKE wire protocol needs no modifications. The major changes are
implementation issues relating to how the proposals are interpreted,
and from whom they may come.
As opportunistic encryption is designed to be useful between peers
without prior operator configuration, an IKE daemon must be prepared
to negotiate phase 1 SAs with any node. This may require a large
amount of resources to maintain cookie state, as well as large
amounts of entropy for nonces, cookies, and so on.
The major changes to support opportunistic encryption are at the IKE
daemon level. These changes relate to handling of key acquisition
requests, lookup of public keys and TXT records, and interactions
with firewalls and other security facilities that may be co-resident
on the same gateway.
4.2. Gateway Discovery Process
In a typical configured tunnel, the address of SG-B is provided via
configuration. Furthermore, the mapping of an SPD entry to a gateway
is typically a 1:1 mapping. When the 0.0.0.0/0 SPD entry technique
is used, then the mapping to a gateway is determined by the reverse
DNS records.
The need to do a DNS lookup and wait for a reply will typically
introduce a new state and a new event source (DNS replies) to IKE.
Although a synchronous DNS request can be implemented for proof of
concept, experience is that it can cause very high latencies when a
queue of queries must all timeout in series.
Use of an asynchronous DNS lookup will also permit overlap of DNS
lookups with some of the protocol steps.
4.3. Self Identification
SG-A will have to establish its identity. Use an IPv4 (IPv6) ID in
phase 1.
There are many situations where the administrator of SG-A may not be
able to control the reverse DNS records for SG-A's public IP address.
Typical situations include dialup connections and most residential-
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type broadband Internet access (ADSL, cable-modem) connections. In
these situations, a fully qualified domain name that is under the
control of SG-A's administrator may be used when acting as an
initiator only. The FQDN ID should be used in phase 1. See Section
5.3 for more details and restrictions.
4.4. Public Key Retrieval Process
Upon receipt of a phase 1 SA proposal with either an IPv4 (IPv6) ID
or an FQDN ID, an IKE daemon needs to examine local caches and
configuration files to determine if this is part of a configured
tunnel. If no configured tunnels are found, then the implementation
should attempt to retrieve a KEY record from the reverse DNS in the
case of an IPv4/IPv6 ID, or from the forward DNS in the case of FQDN
ID.
It is reasonable that if other non-local sources of policy are used
(COPS, LDAP), they be consulted concurrently, but that some clear
ordering of policy be provided. Note that due to variances in
latency, implementations must wait for positive or negative replies
from all sources of policy before making any decisions.
4.5. Interactions with DNSSEC
The implementation described (FreeS/WAN 1.98) neither uses DNSSEC
directly to explicitly verify the authenticity of zone information,
nor uses the NSEC records to provide authentication of the absence of
a TXT or KEY record. Rather, this implementation uses a trusted path
to a DNSSEC-capable caching resolver.
To distinguish between an authenticated and an unauthenticated DNS
resource record, a stub resolver capable of returning DNSSEC
information MUST be used.
4.6. Required Proposal Types
4.6.1. Phase 1 Parameters
Main mode MUST be used.
The initiator MUST offer at least one proposal using some combination
of: 3DES, HMAC-MD5 or HMAC-SHA1, DH group 2 or 5. Group 5 SHOULD be
proposed first. (See [RFC3526])
The initiator MAY offer additional proposals, but the cipher MUST not
be weaker than 3DES. The initiator SHOULD limit the number of
proposals such that the IKE datagrams do not need to be fragmented.
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The responder MUST accept one of the proposals. If any configuration
of the responder is required, then the responder is not acting in an
opportunistic way.
The initiator SHOULD use an ID_IPV4_ADDR (ID_IPV6_ADDR for IPv6) of
the external interface of the initiator for phase 1. (There is an
exception, see Section 5.3.) The authentication method MUST be RSA
public key signatures. The RSA key for the initiator SHOULD be
placed into a DNS KEY record in the reverse space of the initiator
(i.e., using in-addr.arpa or ip6.arpa).
4.6.2. Phase 2 Parameters
The initiator MUST propose a tunnel between the ultimate sender
("Alice" or "A") and ultimate recipient ("Bob" or "B") using 3DES-CBC
mode, MD5, or SHA1 authentication. Perfect Forward Secrecy MUST be
specified.
Tunnel mode MUST be used.
Identities MUST be ID_IPV4_ADDR_SUBNET with the mask being /32.
Authorization for the initiator to act on Alice's behalf is
determined by looking for a TXT record in the reverse-map at Alice's
IP address.
Compression SHOULD NOT be mandatory. It MAY be offered as an option.
5.DNS Issues
5.1. Use of KEY Record
In order to establish their own identities, security gateways SHOULD
publish their public keys in their reverse DNS via DNSSEC's KEY
record. See section 3 of RFC 2535 [RFC2535].
For example:
KEY 0x4200 4 1 AQNJjkKlIk9...nYyUkKK8
0x4200: The flag bits, indicating that this key is prohibited for
confidentiality use (it authenticates the peer only, a separate
Diffie-Hellman exchange is used for confidentiality), and that
this key is associated with the non-zone entity whose name is the
RR owner name. No other flags are set.
4: This indicates that this key is for use by IPsec.
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1: An RSA key is present.
AQNJjkKlIk9...nYyUkKK8: The public key of the host as described in
[RFC3110].
Use of several KEY records allows for key roll-over. The SIG Payload
in IKE phase 1 SHOULD be accepted if the public key, given by any KEY
RR, validates it.
5.2. Use of TXT Delegation Record
If, for example, machine Alice wishes SG-A to act on her behalf, then
she publishes a TXT record to provide authorization for SG-A to act
on Alice's behalf. This is done similarly for Bob and SG-B.
These records are located in the reverse DNS (in-addr.arpa or
ip6.arpa) for their respective IP addresses. The reverse DNS SHOULD
be secured by DNSSEC. DNSSEC is required to defend against active
attacks.
If Alice's address is P.Q.R.S, then she can authorize another node to
act on her behalf by publishing records at:
S.R.Q.P.in-addr.arpa
The contents of the resource record are expected to be a string that
uses the following syntax, as suggested in RFC1464 [RFC1464]. (Note
that the reply to query may include other TXT resource records used
by other applications.)
X-IPsec-Server(P)=A.B.C.D public-key
Figure 2: Format of reverse delegation record
P: Specifies a precedence for this record. This is similar to MX
record preferences. Lower numbers have stronger preference.
A.B.C.D: Specifies the IP address of the Security Gateway for this
client machine.
public-key: Is the encoded RSA Public key of the Security Gateway.
The public-key is provided here to avoid a second DNS lookup. If
this field is absent, then a KEY resource record should be looked
up in the reverse-map of A.B.C.D. The key is transmitted in
base64 format.
The fields of the record MUST be separated by whitespace. This MAY
be: space, tab, newline, or carriage return. A space is preferred.
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In the case where Alice is located at a public address behind a
security gateway that has no fixed address (or no control over its
reverse-map), then Alice may delegate to a public key by domain name.
X-IPsec-Server(P)=@FQDN public-key
Figure 3: Format of reverse delegation record (FQDN version)
P: Is as above.
FQDN: Specifies the FQDN that the Security Gateway will identify
itself with.
public-key: Is the encoded RSA Public key of the Security Gateway.
If there is more than one such TXT record with strongest (lowest
numbered) precedence, one Security Gateway is picked arbitrarily from
those specified in the strongest-preference records.
5.2.1. Long TXT Records
When packed into wire-format, TXT records that are longer than 255
characters are divided into smaller <character-strings>. (See
[RFC1035] section 3.3 and 3.3.14.) These MUST be reassembled into a
single string for processing. Whitespace characters in the base64
encoding are to be ignored.
5.2.2. Choice of TXT Record
It has been suggested to use the KEY, OPT, CERT, or KX records
instead of a TXT record. None is satisfactory.
The KEY RR has a protocol field that could be used to indicate a new
protocol, and an algorithm field that could be used to indicate
different contents in the key data. However, the KEY record is
clearly not intended for storing what are really authorizations, it
is just for identities. Other uses have been discouraged.
OPT resource records, as defined in [RFC2671], are not intended to be
used for storage of information. They are not to be loaded, cached
or forwarded. They are, therefore, inappropriate for use here.
CERT records [RFC2538] can encode almost any set of information. A
custom type code could be used permitting any suitable encoding to be
stored, not just X.509. According to the RFC, the certificate RRs
are to be signed internally, which may add undesirable and
unnecessary bulk. Larger DNS records may require TCP instead of UDP
transfers.
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At the time of protocol design, the CERT RR was not widely deployed
and could not be counted upon. Use of CERT records will be
investigated, and may be proposed in a future revision of this
document.
KX records are ideally suited for use instead of TXT records, but had
not been deployed at the time of implementation.
5.3. Use of FQDN IDs
Unfortunately, not every administrator has control over the contents
of the reverse-map. Where the initiator (SG-A) has no suitable
reverse-map, the authorization record present in the reverse-map of
Alice may refer to a FQDN instead of an IP address.
In this case, the client's TXT record gives the fully qualified
domain name (FQDN) in place of its security gateway's IP address.
The initiator should use the ID_FQDN ID-payload in phase 1. A
forward lookup for a KEY record on the FQDN must yield the
initiator's public key.
This method can also be used when the external address of SG-A is
dynamic.
If SG-A is acting on behalf of Alice, then Alice must still delegate
authority for SG-A to do so in her reverse-map. When Alice and SG-A
are one and the same (i.e., Alice is acting as an end-node) then
there is no need for this when initiating only.
However, Alice must still delegate to herself if she wishes others to
initiate OE to her. See Figure 3.
5.4. Key Roll-Over
Good cryptographic hygiene says that one should replace
public/private key pairs periodically. Some administrators may wish
to do this as often as daily. Typical DNS propagation delays are
determined by the SOA Resource Record MINIMUM parameter, which
controls how long DNS replies may be cached. For reasonable
operation of DNS servers, administrators usually want this value to
be at least several hours, sometimes as a long as a day. This
presents a problem: a new key MUST not be used prior to its
propagation through DNS.
This problem is dealt with by having the Security Gateway generate a
new public/private key pair, at least MINIMUM seconds in advance of
using it. It then adds this key to the DNS (both as a second KEY
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record and in additional TXT delegation records) at key generation
time. Note: only one key is allowed in each TXT record.
When authenticating, all gateways MUST have available all public keys
that are found in DNS for this entity. This permits the
authenticating end to check both the key for "today" and the key for
"tomorrow". Note that it is the end which is creating the signature
(possesses the private key) that determines which key is to be used.
6.Network Address Translation Interaction
There are no fundamentally new issues for implementing opportunistic
encryption in the presence of network address translation. Rather,
there are only the regular IPsec issues with NAT traversal.
There are several situations to consider for NAT.
6.1. Co-Located NAT/NAPT
If a security gateway is also performing network address translation
on behalf of an end-system, then the packet should be translated
prior to being subjected to opportunistic encryption. This is in
contrast to typically configured tunnels, which often exist to bridge
islands of private network address space. The security gateway will
use the translated source address for phase 2, and so the responding
security gateway will look up that address to confirm SG-A's
authorization.
In the case of NAT (1:1), the address space into which the
translation is done MUST be globally unique, and control over the
reverse-map is assumed. Placing of TXT records is possible.
In the case of NAPT (m:1), the address will be the security gateway
itself. The ability to get KEY and TXT records in place will again
depend upon whether or not there is administrative control over the
reverse-map. This is identical to situations involving a single host
acting on behalf of itself. For initiators (but not responders), an
FQDN-style ID can be used to get around a lack of a reverse-map.
6.2. Security Gateway behind a NAT/NAPT
If there is a NAT or NAPT between the security gateways, then normal
IPsecNAT traversal problems occur. In addition to the transport
problem, which may be solved by other mechanisms, there is the issue
of what phase 1 and phase 2 IDs to use. While FQDN could be used
during phase 1 for the security gateway, there is no appropriate ID
for phase 2. Due to the NAT, the end systems live in different IP
address spaces.
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6.3. End System behind a NAT/NAPT
If the end system is behind a NAT (perhaps SG-B), then there is, in
fact, no way for another end system to address a packet to this end
system. Not only is opportunistic encryption impossible, but it is
also impossible for any communication to be initiated to the end
system. It may be possible for this end system to initiate such
communication. This creates an asymmetry, but this is common for
NAPT.
7. Host Implementations
When Alice and SG-A are components of the same system, they are
considered to be a host implementation. The packet sequence scenario
remains unchanged.
Components marked Alice are the upper layers (TCP, UDP, the
application), and SG-A is the IP layer.
Note that tunnel mode is still required.
As Alice and SG-A are acting on behalf of themselves, no TXT based
delegation record is necessary for Alice to initiate. She can rely
on FQDN in a forward map. This is particularly attractive to mobile
nodes such as notebook computers at conferences. To respond,
Alice/SG-A will still need an entry in Alice's reverse-map.
8. Multi-Homing
If there are multiple paths between Alice and Bob (as illustrated in
the diagram with SG-D), then additional DNS records are required to
establish authorization.
In Figure 1, Alice has two ways to exit her network: SG-A and SG-D.
Previously, SG-D has been ignored. Postulate that there are routers
between Alice and her set of security gateways (denoted by the +
signs and the marking of an autonomous system number for Alice's
network). Datagrams may, therefore, travel to either SG-A or SG-D en
route to Bob.
As long as all network connections are in good order, it does not
matter how datagrams exit Alice's network. When they reach either
security gateway, the security gateway will find the TXT delegation
record in Bob's reverse-map, and establish an SA with SG-B.
SG-B has no problem establishing that either of SG-A or SG-D may
speak for Alice, because Alice has published two equally weighted TXT
delegation records:
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X-IPsec-Server(10)=192.1.1.5 AQMM...3s1Q==
X-IPsec-Server(10)=192.1.1.6 AAJN...j8r9==
Figure 4: Multiple gateway delegation example for Alice
Alice's routers can now do any kind of load sharing needed. Both
SG-A and SG-D send datagrams addressed to Bob through their tunnel to
SG-B.
Alice's use of non-equal weight delegation records to show preference
of one gateway over another, has relevance only when SG-B is
initiating to Alice.
If the precedences are the same, then SG-B has a more difficult time.
It must decide which of the two tunnels to use. SG-B has no
information about which link is less loaded, nor which security
gateway has more cryptographic resources available. SG-B, in fact,
has no knowledge of whether both gateways are even reachable.
The Public Internet's default-free zone may well know a good route to
Alice, but the datagrams that SG-B creates must be addressed to
either SG-A or SG-D; they can not be addressed to Alice directly.
SG-B may make a number of choices:
1. It can ignore the problem and round robin among the tunnels.
This causes losses during times when one or the other security
gateway is unreachable. If this worries Alice, she can change
the weights in her TXT delegation records.
2. It can send to the gateway from which it most recently received
datagrams. This assumes that routing and reachability are
symmetrical.
3. It can listen to BGP information from the Internet to decide
which system is currently up. This is clearly much more
complicated, but if SG-B is already participating in the BGP
peering system to announce Bob, the results data may already be
available to it.
4. It can refuse to negotiate the second tunnel. (It is unclear
whether or not this is even an option.)
5. It can silently replace the outgoing portion of the first tunnel
with the second one while still retaining the incoming portions
of both. Thus, SG-B can accept datagrams from either SG-A or
SG-D, but send only to the gateway that most recently re-keyed
with it.
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Local policy determines which choice SG-B makes. Note that even if
SG-B has perfect knowledge about the reachability of SG-A and SG-D,
Alice may not be reachable from either of these security gateways
because of internal reachability issues.
FreeS/WAN implements option 5. Implementing a different option is
being considered. The multi-homing aspects of OE are not well
developed and may be the subject of a future document.
9. Failure Modes
9.1.DNS Failures
If a DNS server fails to respond, local policy decides whether or not
to permit communication in the clear as embodied in the connection
classes in Section 3.2. It is easy to mount a denial of service
attack on the DNS server responsible for a particular network's
reverse-map. Such an attack may cause all communication with that
network to go in the clear if the policy is permissive, or fail
completely if the policy is paranoid. Please note that this is an
active attack.
There are still many networks that do not have properly configured
reverse-maps. Further, if the policy is not to communicate, the
above denial of service attack isolates the target network.
Therefore, the decision of whether or not to permit communication in
the clear MUST be a matter of local policy.
9.2.DNS Configured, IKE Failures
DNS records claim that opportunistic encryption should occur, but the
target gateway either does not respond on port 500, or refuses the
proposal. This may be because of a crash or reboot, a faulty
configuration, or a firewall filtering port 500.
The receipt of ICMP port, host or network unreachable messages
indicates a potential problem, but MUST NOT cause communication to
fail immediately. ICMP messages are easily forged by attackers. If
such a forgery caused immediate failure, then an active attacker
could easily prevent any encryption from ever occurring, possibly
preventing all communication.
In these situations a log should be produced and local policy should
dictate if communication is then permitted in the clear.
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9.3. System Reboots
Tunnels sometimes go down because the remote end crashes,
disconnects, or has a network link break. In general there is no
notification of this. Even in the event of a crash and successful
reboot, other SGs don't hear about it unless the rebooted SG has
specific reason to talk to them immediately. Over-quick response to
temporary network outages is undesirable. Note that a tunnel can be
torn down and then re-established without any effect visible to the
user except a pause in traffic. On the other hand, if one end
reboots, the other end can't get datagrams to it at all (except via
IKE) until the situation is noticed. So a bias toward quick response
is appropriate, even at the cost of occasional false alarms.
A mechanism for recovery after reboot is a topic of current research
and is not specified in this document.
A deliberate shutdown should include an attempt, using delete
messages, to notify all other SGs currently connected by phase 1 SAs
that communication is about to fail. Again, a remote SG will assume
this is a teardown. Attempts by the remote SGs to negotiate new
tunnels as replacements should be ignored. When possible, SGs should
attempt to preserve information about currently-connected SGs in
non-volatile storage, so that after a crash, an Initial-Contact can
be sent to previous partners to indicate loss of all previously
established connections.
10. Unresolved Issues
10.1. Control of Reverse DNS
The method of obtaining information by reverse DNS lookup causes
problems for people who cannot control their reverse DNS bindings.
This is an unresolved problem in this version, and is out of scope.
11. Examples
11.1. Clear-Text Usage (Permit Policy)
Two example scenarios follow. In the first example, GW-A (Gateway A)
and GW-B (Gateway B) have always-clear-text policies, and in the
second example they have an OE policy. The clear-text policy serves
as a reference for what occurs in TCP/IP in the absence of
Opportunistic Encryption.
Alice wants to communicate with Bob. Perhaps she wants to retrieve a
web page from Bob's web server. In the absence of opportunistic
encryptors, the following events occur:
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For the purposes of this section, we will describe only the changes
that occur between Figure 5 and Figure 6. This corresponds to time
points 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10 on the list above.
At point (5), SG-A intercepts the datagram because this
source/destination pair lacks a policy (the nonexistent policy
state). SG-A creates a hold policy, and buffers the datagram. SG-A
requests keys from the keying daemon.
(5B) DNS query for TXT record.
(5C) DNS response for TXT record.
(5D) Initial IKE message to responder.
(5E) Message 2 of phase 1 exchange.
SG-B receives the message. A new connection instance is created
in the unauthenticated OE peer state.
(5F) Message 3 of phase 1 exchange.
SG-A sends a Diffie-Hellman exponent. This is an internal state
of the keying daemon.
(5G) Message 4 of phase 1 exchange.
SG-B responds with a Diffie-Hellman exponent. This is an
internal state of the keying protocol.
(5H) Message 5 of phase 1 exchange.
SG-A uses the phase 1 SA to send its identity under encryption.
The choice of identity is discussed in Section 4.6.1. This is
an internal state of the keying protocol.
(5I) Responder lookup of initiator key. SG-B asks DNS for the public
key of the initiator. DNS looks for a KEY record by IP address
in the reverse-map. That is, a KEY resource record is queried
for 4.1.1.192.in-addr.arpa (recall that SG-A's external address
is 192.1.1.4). SG-B uses the resulting public key to
authenticate the initiator. See Section 5.1 for further
details.
(5J) DNS replies with public key of initiator.
Upon successfully authenticating the peer, the connection
instance makes a transition to authenticated OE peer on SG-B.
The format of the TXT record returned is described in
Section 5.2.
Responder replies with ID and authentication.
SG-B sends its ID along with authentication material, completing
the phase 1 negotiation.
(5L) IKE phase 2 negotiation.
Having established mutually agreeable authentications (via KEY)
and authorizations (via TXT), SG-A proposes to create an IPsec
tunnel for datagrams transiting from Alice to Bob. This tunnel
is established only for the Alice/Bob combination, not for any
subnets that may be behind SG-A and SG-B.
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(5M) Authorization for SG-A to speak for Alice.
While the identity of SG-A has been established, its authority
to speak for Alice has not yet been confirmed. SG-B does a
reverse lookup on Alice's address for a TXT record.
(5N) Responder determines initiator's authority.
A TXT record is returned. It confirms that SG-A is authorized
to speak for Alice.
Upon receiving this specific proposal, SG-B's connection
instance makes a transition into the potential OE connection
state. SG-B may already have an instance, and the check is made
as described above.
(5O) Responder agrees to proposal.
SG-B, satisfied that SG-A is authorized, proceeds with the
phase 2 exchange.
The responder MUST setup the inbound IPsec SAs before sending
its reply.
(5P) Final acknowledgement from initiator.
The initiator agrees with the responder's choice of proposal and
sets up the tunnel. The initiator sets up the inbound and
outbound IPsec SAs.
Upon receipt of this message, the responder may now setup the
outbound IPsec SAs.
(6) IPsec succeeds and sets up a tunnel for communication between
Alice and Bob.
SG-A sends the datagram saved at step (5) through the newly
created tunnel to SG-B, where it gets decrypted and forwarded.
Bob receives it at (7) and replies at (8). SG-B already has a
tunnel up with G1 and uses it. At (9), SG-B has already
established an SPD entry mapping Bob->Alice via a tunnel, so this
tunnel is simply applied. The datagram is encrypted to SG-A,
decrypted by SG-A, and passed to Alice at (10).
12. Security Considerations
12.1. Configured versus Opportunistic Tunnels
Configured tunnels are setup using bilateral mechanisms: exchanging
public keys (raw RSA, DSA, PKIX), pre-shared secrets, or by
referencing keys that are in known places (distinguished name from
LDAP, DNS). These keys are then used to configure a specific tunnel.
A pre-configured tunnel may be on all the time, or may be keyed only
when needed. The endpoints of the tunnel are not necessarily static;
many mobile applications (road warrior) are considered to be
configured tunnels.
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RFC 4322 Opportunistic Encryption using IKE December 2005
The primary characteristic is that configured tunnels are assigned
specific security properties. They may be trusted in different ways
relating to exceptions to firewall rules, exceptions to NAT
processing, and to bandwidth or other quality of service
restrictions.
Opportunistic tunnels are not inherently trusted in any strong way.
They are created without prior arrangement. As the two parties are
strangers, there MUST be no confusion of datagrams that arrive from
opportunistic peers and those that arrive from configured tunnels. A
security gateway MUST take care that an opportunistic peer cannot
impersonate a configured peer.
Ingress filtering MUST be used to make sure that only datagrams
authorized by negotiation (and the concomitant authentication and
authorization) are accepted from a tunnel. This is to prevent one
peer from impersonating another.
An implementation suggestion is to treat opportunistic tunnel
datagrams as if they arrive on a logical interface distinct from
other configured tunnels. As the number of opportunistic tunnels
that may be created automatically on a system is potentially very
high, careful attention to scaling should be taken into account.
As with any IKE negotiation, opportunistic encryption cannot be
secure without authentication. Opportunistic encryption relies on
DNS for its authentication information and, therefore, cannot be
fully secure without a secure DNS. Without secure DNS, opportunistic
encryption can protect against passive eavesdropping but not against
active man-in-the-middle attacks.
12.2. Firewalls versus Opportunistic Tunnels
Typical usage of per datagram access control lists is to implement
various kinds of security gateways. These are typically called
"firewalls".
Typical usage of a virtual private network (VPN) within a firewall is
to bypass all or part of the access controls between two networks.
Additional trust (as outlined in the previous section) is given to
datagrams that arrive in the VPN.
Datagrams that arrive via opportunistically configured tunnels MUST
not be trusted. Any security policy that would apply to a datagram
arriving in the clear SHOULD also be applied to datagrams arriving
opportunistically.
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RFC 4322 Opportunistic Encryption using IKE December 2005
12.3. Denial of Service
There are several different forms of denial of service that an
implementor should be concerned with. Most of these problems are
shared with security gateways that have large numbers of mobile peers
(road warriors).
The design of ISAKMP/IKE, and its use of cookies, defend against many
kinds of denial of service. Opportunism changes the assumption that
if the phase 1 (ISAKMP) SA is authenticated, that it was worthwhile
creating. Because the gateway will communicate with any machine, it
is possible to form phase 1 SAs with any machine on the Internet.
13.Acknowledgements
Substantive portions of this document are based upon previous work by
Henry Spencer. [OEspec]
Thanks to Tero Kivinen, Sandy Harris, Wes Hardarker, Robert
Moskowitz, Jakob Schlyter, Bill Sommerfeld, John Gilmore, and John
Denker for their comments and constructive criticism.
Sandra Hoffman and Bill Dickie did the detailed proof reading and
editing.
14. References
14.1. Normative References
[RFC1035] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, November 1987.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2401] Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 2401, November 1998.
[RFC2407] Piper, D., "The Internet IP Security Domain of
Interpretation for ISAKMP", RFC 2407, November 1998.
[RFC2408] Maughan, D., Schneider, M., and M. Schertler, "Internet
Security Association and key Management Protocol
(ISAKMP)", RFC 2408, November 1998.
[RFC2409] Harkins, D. and D. Carrel, "The Internet key Exchange
(IKE)", RFC 2409, November 1998.
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RFC 4322 Opportunistic Encryption using IKE December 2005
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